


Parts of a Whole

by MHammerman



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23069215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MHammerman/pseuds/MHammerman
Summary: When Kurt visits Kitty in Chicago to comfort her on the anniversary of Piotr's death, they find themselves nursing an attraction but are troubled by the past, including an unexpected encounter during Kitty's early days as an X-Man, in which she caught Kurt and Amanda in a decidedly compromising position.
Relationships: Kitty Pryde/Kurt Wagner
Comments: 22
Kudos: 14





	Parts of a Whole

**Author's Note:**

> This is an updated version of a story originally posted on fanfiction.net many years ago (under the name Marg Hammerman). I've been getting back into X-Men comics lately, and felt the need to revisit and gloss up some of my old favs. Even if you've read this story before, there's a few new tweaks you might enjoy :) 
> 
> This story is set in the comics universe. It goes back and forth between a behind-the-scenes imagining of the aftermath of Uncanny X-Men Annual #4 (the one where it's Kurt's birthday and his foster mom sends them to hell and we find out Amanda is really Kurt's foster sister etc.) and the later (post-Excalibur) X-Men Unlimited #38 (the one where Kurt goes to visit Kitty at college to comfort her on the anniversary of Peter/Colossus' death). BUT—you absolutely do not have to read either comic to read this story; there's enough exposition (I hope!) to make everything relatively stand-alone. Both of those comics are awesome, though, so you should probably go ahead and read them anyway, if you haven't already :) There's some mature-ish, but narratively motivated, sexual content near the beginning of the story, but other than that, it should be safely in the T-zone.
> 
> Review if you like! But most of all—ENJOY!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men, or profit in any (financial) way from writing about them.

**Parts of a Whole**

**_Six Years Ago_ ** **—**

Amanda was kissing Kurt everywhere. Or at least, she was trying to. Her full, candy-pink lips tickled up his neck's sleek fur, wending through errant strands of deeper indigo hair to the pointed tip of his ear before travelling down his cheekbone toward the pout of his nearly-black lips. It was there Kurt stopped her, backing stiffly out of her embrace. His golden eyes flashed as he cautioned, in a not-quite-low-enough voice, "Not here, not in front of..."

Heat surged in Kitty's cheeks as she quickly averted her gaze. But she wasn't quite quick enough to avoid being pierced by Amanda's silver blue eyes, shooting like daggers across the room. The next time Kitty risked a glance in the statuesque blonde's direction, she was whispering in Kurt's ear. Whatever it was made him twitch his forked tail and shift his weight from one two-toed foot to the other. Amanda merely smiled.

Kitty spent most of the next hour lingering near the comforting shadow of Peter's broad shoulders. As usual, Peter was the calm in the eye of the storm, slowly sipping a thin flute of punch despite Logan's repeated exhortations to trade it in for something stronger. Logan didn't need excuses to drink, but if he had, that evening's events would have provided plenty. It had begun with a birthday party for Kurt, and morphed into a literal trip to hell and back. Kitty had witnessed Kurt's dramatic collapse into seeming death while opening a mysterious present, and had pieced together the rest of the story through snippets of conversation in and around the punch bowl. Apparently, Kurt's gypsy-sorceress-foster-mother had created an illusion of Dante's Inferno to punish Kurt for his supposed murder of her biological son. Thankfully, Kurt was innocent of those charges, so Kurt's gypsy-sorceress-foster-mother forgave him, and disappeared in a puff of smoke (as sorceresses tend to do). But that wasn't even the strangest turn of the night. That award had to go to the revelation that Kurt's erstwhile girlfriend was actually his foster sister. For reasons Kitty didn't completely understand, she'd been using magic to disguise herself from everyone, including Kurt. But Kurt didn't seem to mind; judging by all the decidedly un-sibling-like kisses, they were still very much a couple.

Now, it was back to being a birthday party, infused with additional festivity by the team's latest triumph against the forces of evil. Ororo was helping Logan cheat Scott at a game of pool, using tiny gusts of wind to derail their fearless leader's otherwise perfect aim. Scott was growing increasingly agitated, and Logan and Ororo were growing increasingly amused. The Professor was looking on, eyes disapproving, but betrayed by a hint of a smile. Soon, Scott and Logan would nearly come close to blows, and Ororo would step between them, diffusing their violence as easily as she'd stoked it. Kitty watched all of that, but she also continued to watch Kurt and Amanda. She didn't want to, but she couldn't help it. The scene with Scott, Logan, and Ororo, was typical; the scene between Kurt and Amanda was not.

There was something inescapably fascinating about Kurt's body language within Amanda's orbit. She'd grown accustomed to his quirks, which still sometimes unsettled her, but no longer scared her. Yet something was different about him, something important. Maybe it was the weight lifted from his shoulders following the confrontation with his foster mother. But it was also _her_ , Amanda, her smile, and her body, and whatever she kept whispering to Kurt out of earshot under her breath, things that seemed to repel and then corral him into an ever-closer orbit, his seldom-still tail circling her lower half with intricate caresses that never quite touched her skin or diaphanous skirt.

The party broke up sometime after the pool game did. Back in her room, Kitty changed into her pyjamas, but wasn't ready to sleep. Instead, she decided to work. For most of another hour, she made her way through printouts from a diagnostic she was helping the Professor run on the Danger Room systems, crunching numbers and trying to find commonalities in the malfunctions. Things were starting to come together, but she was stuck on a problem reported by Kurt and Logan that didn't seem to fit the pattern. Asking Logan for help was out of the question; birthday or no, Kurt seemed like the easier target.

Kitty walked the short distance down the oak paneled hallway to Kurt's room with her face buried in reams of paper. She began talking loudly outside the door before proceeding to phase inside.

"Hey, Kurt, I know it's your birthday and all, but I was checking out this diagnostic we did, and I figured you'd still be—"

Everything that happened next happened very quickly. Kurt's panicked voice gasping a German swear word preceded a flurry of movement like bugs scattering from a light. In the space of a few seconds, Kurt had a sheet wrapped clumsily around his waist, and Amanda was fumbling with the belt of a burgundy robe. Kitty stood, dumbfounded, for one more second before turning and running back through the door, ignoring Kurt's voice crying after her.

Kitty remained intangible until she collapsed, face down, on the bed in her own room. But of course that made everything worse, because what she'd seen in those few seconds after entering Kurt's room kept replaying in the darkened theater behind her eyelids. There was Kurt, and there was Amanda. Naked. Presumably, anyway—she couldn't see much of Amanda, who was angled away from her, bent over with her forearms braced against the wall. Kurt was behind her, proving both his flexibility and dexterity with the foot he propped against the carved wooden windowsill above Amanda's waist. His two-fingered hands were squeezing both of her breasts, whose ample weight bounced in concert with Kurt's thrusts and Amanda's moans, and Kurt's tail was… She couldn't be sure, but it seemed to be everywhere, entangling every appendage and threaded through every orifice while Amanda kept moaning and Kurt groaned, his long blue toes like fingers tightening their grip on the windowsill…

Kitty threw herself onto her back, opened her eyes, and stared up at the ceiling, trying to sear her mind's eye in the glare of the light. She lay there silently, not moving, trying not to think. After a period of time that was either a moment or an eternity, she was jolted back to reality by a tentative rapping of a distinctive pair of knuckles against her door.

"Katzchen? Kitty, are you in there?"

 **_Now_ ** **—**

_Kurt-_

_Have to get to class. If you're able to stick around, I'd love to buy you dinner. Thanks for being you._

_-Kitty_

When Kitty had left for class early that morning, Kurt had been fast asleep on her couch, an almost sickeningly adorable pile of tangled velvet limbs and tousled blue-black hair, half in and half out of an equally tangled blanket. She'd left the note under a cup of coffee next to Kurt's face, where she was sure he would find it. Yet when she returned to the apartment that evening, struggling through the door with an armful of books, she was nonetheless surprised to see him.

Her greeted her enthusiastically, hurrying to her side to help unburden her load. "Welcome home, Katzchen! I would have gotten the door, but I left my inducer in the other room, and I wouldn't want to unduly frighten your neighbors."

"No problem," she assured him. "I'm, uh, glad you're still here."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Kitty declined to answer. It wasn't that she didn't trust him. Kitty had put her life in Kurt's hands countless times. And he'd been the first person she'd thought to call in the middle of the night two days before, making wild claims about seeing her dead ex-boyfriend walking the streets of her Chicago neighborhood. But she was still surprised. Even if he'd managed to avoid being called away to who knows where (or when) to battle who knows what evil space alien, robot, or mutant despot, she'd assumed he'd find a reason to leave. That had been the pattern of their relationship in recent years. They never reconnected for long, and only for work, sending evil aliens back to space, evil robots back to the scrap heap, and evil despots back to prison. Then they'd go their separate ways, until the next potentially world-ending crisis inevitably threw them back into each other's lives.

Even when they'd been closer—when they'd lived side-by-side, first at the Mansion, then on Muir Island, then at the Braddock Lighthouse, on the shores of Cornwall, as members of Excalibur—their relationship had been complicated. It had been that way ever since their decidedly strange first encounter, when she was a frightened thirteen-year-old still discovering her mutant powers. That fateful night, Kurt had saved her life, and she'd shown her gratefulness by running away screaming, terrified far more of Kurt's demonic features than the enormous guns of the Hellfire guards who'd kidnapped her.

Over the subsequent months and years, Kitty had grown to love Kurt, as anyone who knew him well inevitably did. During their Excalibur years, their relationship had even deepened into something truly unbreakable: the unconditional bond of family. Yet the circumstances of that bond were as strange as their first meeting. When they'd formed Excalibur, each of them had been all the other had left, the rest of their closest friends seeming to have perished on a mission without them. Since taking her leave from the X-Men to attend college, one of Kitty's preoccupying worries was that her tiny South Side apartment would become the Braddock Lighthouse all over again, except without Kurt, Rachel, Brian, or Meggan to keep her grounded in the chaos of the only type of life her mutant self had ever known. She'd always have Lockheed, but even he'd developed an independent streak; these days, she was more likely to encounter him flying through her window late at night for an overdue sleep session than draped over her shoulder. It wasn't the time or the distance from her friends that Kitty feared, but rather the change in circumstances. Most of her bonds among the X-Men, and especially her bond with Kurt, had been born in strife and catastrophe. When it came right down to it, Kitty was worried that if they weren't in the midst of saving the world, if their very lives didn't literally depend on each other, she and Kurt might have nothing in common. Perhaps, in the absence of crisis, they might discover that they didn't really need each other after all.

And yet, here he was, making a careful pile of her books on a side-table before helping her take off her coat, which he dutifully hung in the closet.

"What are you, my butler?"

"No, just a gentleman. How was your day?"

Kitty wasn't quite ready to tell Kurt about her healing confrontation with Peter Rasputin's look-a-like. Instead, she responded with a tired groan as she stalked into the living room and threw herself down on the couch.

"Ugh. _College_. _You_ know."

"Not really," said Kurt, perching on the arm of the couch.

"Right. You've never… Wait, did you even—" she raised her body to look at him. "Have you ever been to school? Any school?"

"Not as such, no."

"But you can _read_. And do math. I mean, presumably... you are a _pilot..._ "

Kurt grinned. " _Unlicensed_. But yes, I can read. German, English, and Latin. And do math. A _bit_ of math, anyway. My mother taught me—taught _us_. Until Stefan, Jimaine—that is, _Amanda_ —and I were old enough to teach each other." He shrugged. "We got by."

"God… Here I am complaining about school and you never even got to... I'm sorry, Kurt. I am _such_ a tool."

Kurt seemed genuinely amused by her apology. "I wouldn't worry about it, Katzchen. From your demeanor, it doesn't seem like I'm missing much."

"Oh, you'd hate it. Sitting still for hours at a time, listening to some old guy drone on and on about the nature of the universe… But hey, maybe I'm reminding you of priest school, huh? That's one you went to."

Kurt's smile faded. "You've brought that up a couple of times during this visit."

"Have I?" she asked, the picture of innocence. "I didn't notice."

"Hm. Well, anyway, now that you've escaped the salt mines, what do you want to do for the evening? Your wish is my command."

" _Dinner_. I owe you. We'll go out somewhere. Just give me a few minutes to change into something less… _academic_."

In fact, Kitty took fifteen minutes, far longer than she'd intended. She'd meant to simply put on a different sweater, but when she caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror on the door of her bedroom, she frowned, and changed her mind. A different sweater became a different set of earrings, but then the new earrings didn't match either sweater, she so hauled out a seldom-worn black cocktail dress, which only went with a pair of equally seldom-worn black pumps. She finished the look with a dash of cherry red lipstick she couldn't remember buying. Maybe it was a gift from her mother? Her best girlfriends, Rachel and Illyana, weren't exactly the lipstick-gifting type.

When she reappeared in the living room, Kurt was leaning against the wall by the door, flipping through one of her anatomy textbooks. It wasn't always easy to track the movements of Kurt's glowing, pupil-less eyes. But when his head jerked up, there was no doubt—he was looking at her. There was also no mistaking the way his golden gaze widened at the sight.

"You…" Kurt cleared his throat, and tried again. "You look lovely, Katzchen. All set?"

"I guess so. I just hope I remember how to walk in these shoes."

"Don't worry—I'd carry you."

"I know—you're a gentleman."

Kurt looked down at his own clothes. He was wearing a pair of soft, faded jeans and a black, unbuttoned henley that exposed a generous portion of his sleek indigo chest, with a black leather bomber jacket tossed over his arm. As usual, he was shoeless.

"I'm sorry I'm not dressed to match," he said, sliding his arms into his jacket. "But, then, since I won't be going as myself anyway…"

As he reached into his pocket for his image inducer, Kitty closed the distance between them, and seized his arm. "Wait—who are you going to go as?"

"I don't—"

"Just… Don't go as Errol Flynn, or a priest or—can you just go as you? I mean, you know, 'human' you."

Kurt shifted his weight. "I have a setting for that, but I don't usually… It's almost worse, you know?"

"It's just…" Kitty struggled to articulate her suddenly desperate need to not be parted from his face. "It's bad enough talking to you through that thing, and… If I can't be with the real you tonight, I want to be with someone as much like the real you as possible." She ran her hand up his arm, feeling the subtle friction of his fur under the leather. "Please? Just this once? You can pretend you're a know-it-all grad student showing me the ropes."

Kurt smiled bravely. "Your wish…"

He was still smiling as the always-uncanny transformation occurred, an electric, flickering wave replacing blue fur with pink skin, golden eyes with brown irises and black pupils.

"… is my command."

And just like that, he was standing in front of her—Kurt, but not Kurt. Kurt the sexy foreign exchange student or touring German footballer, but not Kurt the mutant. He was wearing—that is, his _image_ was wearing—a narrow grey sharkskin suit over a white shirt unbuttoned to the groove of his now-smooth chest. The essence of him was there. That was definitely Kurt's wavy dark hair curling around his blunted ears, those were definitely Kurt's lean muscles, and the dancerly way he moved, weight balancing effortlessly on the balls of unique feet now hidden by a pair of dark wingtips, was most definitely Kurt. But the sum of the parts was entirely wrong.

Kitty tried to smile, lips fighting against an inexorable wave of existential grief. Kurt was right—in a way, this really was worse. She quickly dropped her hand from his arm to avoid the unsettling disconnect between her senses of touch and sight.

"You look nice," she managed.

"Thanks," he replied. His voice, at least, was as it should be, even if his tone was unusually flat. "Shall we go?"

_**Then—** _

"Katzchen? Kitty, are you in there?"

Kitty sat up but merely stared at the door, at a loss for the appropriate response at being confronted by the star of her nightmare.

"Kitty?" Kurt's muffled voice called again, his tone pleading. "Please, Kitty, if you're in there, we need to talk. Please, just… Let me in, okay? Please?"

Mechanically, barely aware of what she was doing or why, Kitty got up, and opened the door.

"Oh thank God," sighed Kurt, dropping his shoulder against the door jam. He was wearing a pair of dark sweatpants and a white t-shirt that fairly glowed against his indigo fur. His mouth twitched into a nervous half-smile. "I was just about to promise you I was wearing pants, but I wasn't sure how well that would land under the circumstances."

His smile fell as he registered the blankness of Kitty's own expression. He cleared his throat and forced his face into a more serious vein. "Um… Yes, well. Thanks again for… letting me in."

Kitty didn't say anything, but she did clear the way for him to enter, and returned to her bed, sitting down stiffly on the edge of the mattress.

Kurt closed the door behind him and paused for a moment, eyes roving from one side of the room to the other. Finally, he joined her by the bed, rotating her desk chair to cross his forearms over what should have been the back of it, tail dangling down the front. Once he was sitting, though, he froze again, golden eyes settled somewhere between the floor and Kitty's shins.

As the silent minutes ticked away, Kitty found herself slipping into a kind of trance watching the motion of Kurt's tail, swishing a rhythm so regular, it had to be unconscious.

Kitty blinked as Kurt's tail abruptly stilled, her gaze drawing back toward the new most arresting thing in the room—the penetrating intensity of Kurt's golden eyes.

_**Now—** _

They ended up dodging rain into a casual Thai restaurant a short walk from her apartment, where they sat in the window under coloured paper lanterns, looking very overdressed.

They filled the time before their meals arrived doing all the catching up they hadn't done the night before, discussing the latest upgrades to the Danger Room, Logan's various new ladyfriends, and, of course, the Mansion's new crop of students. Kitty waited until her pad thai was in front of her to broach the topic of her conversation with Peter's look-a-like.

"I wanted to tell you," she began tentatively, chopsticks circling idly through her noodles, "that I saw him again."

Kurt took his time swallowing a mouthful of keang puk before responding. "Did you talk to him?"

"Yes. He's lived here for 8 years and been a cop for 6. He's got a wife and two kids."

"I see."

"We had coffee, and I explained why I'd been following him. I… told him about Peter. I mean, you know, the safe parts. He listened. Then we went our separate ways."

Kurt's false eyes were lost in the food he'd stopped eating.

"Are you mad?" she asked, scouring his strange, too-human countenance for hints.

"No," he said at last, brown eyes finally meeting hers. "I'm glad you did it—glad you were able to find some closure."

"I just… I had to know. I had to know if I was crazy."

"Sometimes, love can feel like madness." His cheek twitched with a hint of a smile. "But then—I wouldn't want to live without it. Would you?"

"No," she agreed. "I wouldn't."

They finished their food in mostly companionable silence, watching an assortment of book-laden students and young couples scuttle past them on the street outside, their many-coloured umbrellas slick with rain. Yet the longer Kitty sat across from the false image of her genuine friend, the more it felt wrong. Kurt's body language suggested he agreed. More times than she could count, Kitty had watched Kurt confront the possibility of death with an almost embarrassing level of bravery. And yet here, sitting in the window of a perfectly average restaurant on a rainy October evening, his discomfort was obvious; his shoulders were too stiff, his back entirely too straight.

When the waiter arrived to clear their plates, Kitty couldn't decide whether she was disappointed or relieved. Kurt's hand was first to the bill.

"Oh Kurt, you don't have to do that—it was supposed to be my treat."

"Don't worry about it," he assured her. "Even my meager finances likely make me much wealthier than you. I have to use my card, though. I'll be right back."

Kurt had barely been gone a moment before a piercing female voice cried her name from across the room.

" _Kitty!_ "

_**Then—** _

"Kitty? I'm… Listen, I'm _sorry_ ," Kurt said at last. "I really am. But it just… It happens, okay? It's an embarrassing story. No doubt we'll laugh about it later. We don't even have to tell anyone. Not the Professor, not even Logan—okay? So you see, it's not—"

"I've never seen anyone having sex before," Kitty blurted out. "Never. Not even in a video at a slumber party. This was... my first time."

Kurt leaned back. "Oh… Well, I… um… It's still… It's not…" His hand massaged the back of his neck as he helplessly trailed off.

After another long silence, he tried a different track. "Kitty… Why were you staring at my tail just now?"

"What?"

"My tail. You were… Is that what this is about?"

Kitty shook her head definitively. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"This isn't about catching _someone_ having sex, is it? This is about _you_ catching _me_ having sex. Right?"

"Of course not!" Kitty insisted, a little too forcefully.

" _Mein Gott_ …" Kurt buried his face in his two-fingered hands.

"Kurt—Kurt, I'm sorry, I—"

"You know, I'm trying. I _have_ tried. We've been living together, training together, saving the world together, for months now. What do I have to do to—"

"Nothing! You don't have to do anything! We're friends! You're one of my best friends!"

"Katzchen. You can be honest with me. I've heard worse—I promise."

"I am! I am being honest!"

" _Kitty_."

_**Now—** _

"Kitty! _Ki_ -tty!

Kitty's recently devoured noodles turned over in her stomach the moment she heard Carol Holmes cry her name. Carol was a classmate and ostensible friend, though their interactions generally consisted of Kitty parrying a series of veiled insults about what Carol viewed as Kitty's incomprehensible dedication to scholarship, and equally incomprehensible disinterest in shopping or parties. Carol didn't need to worry about studying; her wealthy parents would make sure a degree eventually materialized, one way or another.

Gritting her teeth against an almost overwhelming urge to phase through the floor, Kitty forced her face into an approximation of a welcoming smile as Carol danced nimbly across the room, expertly navigating a maze of people and tables in her towering stiletto heels; for Carol, being overdressed was par for the course.

"Kitty Kat! I barely recognized you—you're all glamed up! What's the occasion?"

"Carol! No, um, no occasion. But what are _you_ doing here? This doesn't seem like your kind of place."

"I don't seem like someone who likes Thai food?"

"No, I—"

"It doesn't hurt that _Brad_ likes that ridiculous Thai beer, which you can _only_ get here."

"Brad, as in—"

"As in this century's sexiest captain of the wrestling team."

"Right..."

"Speaking of..."

Kitty followed Carol's eyes, which had quickly abandoned her in favor of the handsome stranger she'd just realized was returning to _Kitty's_ table.

" _Well_ ," Carol cooed. " _Now_ I understand. Hello there, pleasure to meet you. I'm Carol."

Carol extended her perfectly manicured fingers, anticipating a modest handshake. But since the handsome stranger was Kurt, he of course opted instead for a courtly kiss of her knuckles.

"The pleasure's all mine," he purred.

"This is Kurt," Kitty said flatly, wanting to roll her eyes, but settling for a scowl that was meant as much for Kurt as for Carol.

" _Love_ the accent," Carol gushed. "German?"

"Kurt goes to university in Berlin," Kitty explained. "He's just visiting, attending a conference on… genetics."

"Scientist, hm? You strike me more as the athletic type."

Kurt's flashed his best smile, fangs safely contained behind his technological glamour. "You know what they say. Healthy body…"

"In _deed_ ," agreed Carol, eyes sweeping down said body and up again, to linger unashamedly on the exposed groove of Kurt's smooth chest.

Kitty cleared her throat loudly, snapping Carol out of her reverie.

"Are you here long?" she asked. "I could show you around."

"I'm sure that would be _lovely_ ," Kurt replied. "But I'm leaving. Tomorrow."

Carol pouted exaggeratedly. "Aw, too bad! Well, it was nice meeting you, anyway. Next time, Pryde, try not to keep all the hot foreign scientists to yourself, huh?"

"Sure, Carol," Kitty grumbled.

Carol offered Kurt one final, seductive smile as she sashayed past him, hip brushing his as she went. Behind his back, she turned to mouth "he is so hot" and give Kitty a thumbs up of encouragement followed by a "call me" gesture. Kurt glanced over his shoulder at the prompting of Kitty's mortified expression, but Carol was once again safely on her way, quickly disappearing into her crowd of friends.

When they left the restaurant, it had stopped raining, but was still drizzling.

Kitty wriggled her shoulders deeper into her trench coat. "Ug, I should have checked the forecast."

"If you want, I could—"

Kitty made a face. "I _just_ ate. Besides, I thought you were trying to keep a low profile."

"Within reason."

" _Rain_ hardly counts as an emergency."

Kurt shifted uncomfortably in his fake clothes, probably zipping up his invisible bomber jacket. "Speak for yourself."

"It's just a few blocks—c'mon."

Despite the drizzle and the obvious (if exaggerated) discomfort of her furry friend, Kitty set a meandering pace, not quite ready to face the dirty dishes, her stack of textbooks, or the drapes that still smelled like the Yardzeit candle she'd burned for too long.

"I'm sorry about Carol," she offered. "She's… Well, she's the worst. She's one of those trust fund kids—big on making 'connections,' less keen on going to class."

If Kurt was listening, he didn't show it. He was intently studying the puddles at their feet, hands buried in his pockets.

"Hey, earth to Kurt—are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Kurt had always been a terrible liar. "We really don't have to walk if you—"

"It's not that, it's just... What happened back there reminded me of why I don't like using…" He shook his head to clear it, and forced a small smile. "It's fine. Really."

"Worried she'd be goggle-eyed for a different reason if she got a glimpse of your tail?"

Kurt's dark pupils shot her a look that was so familiar, she was sure she glimpsed a flicker of gold.

"Okay, okay... But it does bother you, doesn't it? A woman hitting on you when you're like this."

"Ja," he sighed. "I know it's silly, but… It does bother me."

"Then maybe you shouldn't go around kissing ladies' hands."

"I can't turn off my _manners_ , Katzchen."

"Uh huh. How did she not notice, anyway? How your hand—not to mention your face—feels a lot different than it looks?"

Kurt shrugged. "Minimal contact. And in my experience, people are very happy to believe the evidence of their eyes unless you give them a compelling reason not to."

"I guess that makes sense. The truth is too crazy to be believed, right?"

"Something like that."

As they made room on the narrow sidewalk for a young couple walking arm and arm in the opposite direction, Kurt's invisible tail brushed inadvertently against Kitty's bare ankle.

"Have you ever done that?" she asked. "Started dating someone who didn't, you know…"

"Only when I first met Amanda. Before I knew she was Jimaine, I mean."

"So what did you…"

"We only went out a few times," Kurt explained. "It was a cool fall, so I had a good excuse to be wearing gloves most of the time. But then, after the third date, we kissed, and… I knew I'd have to tell her. Or stop seeing her. Both seemed like viable options, since she didn't seem to notice anything amiss. But of course, she knew all along."

"But you didn't know that. Did you end up telling her?"

"Ja. I figured, what's the worst that can happen? She has a heart attack, I call 911, and teleport away," Kurt smiled ruefully but not unhappily at the memory.

After a moment, he continued. "Really, though, at the time, it felt like the worst day of my life. It was a Friday. She was cooking me dinner at her place, and her roommate was away for the weekend. I waited until after dinner. I don't know how I managed to eat, I was so nervous. Maybe I didn't, I can't really remember. But I do remember us going into the living room after dinner and… _Mein Gott_ , it was awful, like one of those scenes in Superman, but worse, because… well, because I'm _me_ , and it was really happening. I didn't exactly explain. I told her there was something I needed to tell her, closed my eyes, and turned off my inducer. When I opened my eyes, she was leaning in to kiss me. It should have been a very romantic moment. But of course, I was practically unconscious from nerves. Needless to say, I didn't spend the night. We made a date for the next week—my birthday—so she could meet everyone, know what she was really getting into. And, of course, _that_ night everything… Well."

Responding to a sudden tightness in her chest, Kitty reached for his hand. Kurt started a bit, surprised at the urgency of the gesture. But he surrendered his hand easily, and she accepted it gratefully, grounded by its familiar softness and the unmistakable—to anyone who was looking for it—feel of his two large fingers curling around hers. For a while, Kurt looked down at their entwined hands, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he gave her fingers a comforting squeeze, the smooth underside of his thumb stroking her wrist. Kitty's own thumb traced small patterns in the velvet fur on the back of his hand, watching the sidewalk to avoid their wavering reflections in the shop windows.

Their hands remained joined until the stairs to her apartment, where Kitty needed both of hers to fumble through her purse for her keys.

"Still," she began, as she jiggled the key in the stubborn lock. "Carol's pretty, right?"

"A bit young for me, I think."

"She's 21. You're 28."

"I'll be 29 next month."

"She's rich, you know. You wouldn't have to work a day in your life."

"Do I detect a hint of jealousy?"

Kitty snorted as she kicked open the finally unlocked door. "Jealous. Right."

Her studied indifference was shattered by a squeal of surprise as Kurt seized her hand. He jerked her close to his chest before lowering her into a graceful dip that swung them both into the apartment, simultaneously pushing the door closed with his still-invisible tail.

"It's been a wonderful night, mein prinzessin. But, alas, there's a shadow hanging over our love."

Getting into the spirit of the thing despite herself, Kitty swooned into his supporting grip. "Oh, Herr Wagner, what could possibly sully this perfect moment?"

"My darling," crooned Kurt, holding her easily in his deceptively strong arms. "The time has come to tell you the truth."

"Oh, Herr _Wag_ ner," she purred back, reaching up to dramatically stoke his cheek. "What soft _skin_ you have."

"I know our love is pure, that you were able to see past this monstrous pink-skinned veneer. But I was not always this way. In truth, I am a blue-furred prince, and your love has freed me from my evil enchantment. Observe!"

Once again, a flicker of light transformed him, replacing his wrong face with his right one. At the sight, Kitty's heart did skip a beat, so welcome were his familiar features after an evening spent hiding. Her hand felt heavy against his cheek as she stroked her thumb up, greeting the tip of his pointed ear like a long-lost friend. Time crept to a standstill as she savored the reunification of her senses, fingers confirming the evidence of her eyes as they passed over his ear and down the back of his neck, fingernails subtly parting his sleek fur. She blinked, and Kurt's face was closer, so close she could feel his breath on her lips, slow, deep, and warm...

And then, suddenly, cold. Kurt inhaled a sharp breath and pulled away, straightening to his full height as he released her body, and took a generous step back.

"We should probably…" he swallowed, and tried again. "I know you have to get up early in the morning, and I've got to… That is, I'm sure I'm due back, as well. Who knows how many crises have befallen mutantkind in the 48 hours I've been away?"

"I hope it's at least five," she quipped, falling into old patterns to distract herself from the unsteadiness permeating her limbs. "I wouldn't want you to feel unwanted."

Kurt quipped back, "If they've so much as survived in my absence, I'll be insulted."

"Seriously, though. You've got to get back to super-heroing, and I've got to get back to studying, but right now, we're both here, and the world's not ending around us. For _once_. I think that deserves a modest celebration."

She skipped into the kitchen and uncovered an unopened bottle of red wine left over from her housewarming. Returning to the living room, she brandished the bottle, two glasses, and a corkscrew.

"Nightcap?"

Kurt's face broke into a lopsided grin that exposed a hint of fangs. "Why not?"

Kitty pondered both the question and her oddly fluttering heart as she led them toward the couch.

_**Then—** _

Kitty bit her cheek, chewed it, and then said, "I'm not afraid of _you._ I'm afraid of _me_."

"What?"

"I'm afraid… I'm afraid of… of being a mutant. There! I said it!"

"But what does that have to do with—"

Floodgates opened, Kitty's words poured forth in a torrent. "It was confusing to me when I came, you know? How you're the only one of us that looks... different. I mean, _really_ different. Ororo has her white hair, and Scott has his sunglasses, but you're… Anyway, I wanted to know why—why your mutation seems to be so much different than everyone else's. So I asked the Professor. He told me to ask you. So I broke into the Professor's files, and found out. He thinks you're a second-generation mutant. That you're the son of mutants, and that accelerated your mutation. Made you more… mutated than the rest of us."

"And you're scared that… if you had children…"

"I'm just _scared_ Kurt."

Kurt's mysterious, pupil-less eyes blinked slowly. "You should have talked to me, Katzchen."

"Yes," she agreed. "But it wouldn't have stopped me walking in on you and your sister having sex, would it?"

"She's not my—"

"Sorry. _Foster_ sister."

"We just grew up together. We're not _related_ , so it's not… Okay, well, I guess I could see how it might seem a _little_ bit weird, but—"

" _Kurt_. It's okay. I was just teasing. Remember?" She raised her eyebrows encouragingly. "Jokes?"

"Vaguely," he said, flatly.

Kitty looked down at her socks, toes curling into the carpet.

_**Now—** _

Most of the bottle later, Kitty and Kurt were slouched against opposite corners of the couch, parts of them meeting in the middle. Kitty's legs, now clothed in a pair of black yoga pants, were kicked up and over the back of the couch, calves resting against one of Kurt's denim-clad knees. Kurt's other leg was draped over the side of the couch, foot resting on the floor. Where it emerged from the darkness between his legs, his tail looped over his thigh, still save the occasional twitch near its forked tip.

"So…" Kitty began, deciding she'd had just enough wine to turn the conversation toward "serious" matters. "Are you seeing anyone?"

Kurt paused mid-sip. "Not… as such."

"Not even any Amanda in your life?"

"I'm afraid not. Since taking over limbo, she's… Well, she has her fill of demons at the moment, I think."

"But you are… on the market, right?"

"'On the market?'" Kurt echoed.

"I mean, you're not… you know…" Kitty swirled her wine

"Um… celibate?"

Kitty smiled graciously as she swung one of her legs off the back of the couch, tapping his chest with her heel. " _That's_ the word I was looking for."

Kurt deposited his glass on the coffee table to better defend himself against any further physical intrusions. " _No_. I'm not training to be a priest anymore, and besides, I made a decision that I don't… Not having sex isn't good for people. It makes them crazy."

"Did it make _you_ crazy?"

"Almost, I think. I don't know... At the time, it did seem like I had more women throwing themselves at me than usual, but that might have been a symptom of craziness."

"Didn't _Cerise_ come after you, even?"

Kurt's eyes shot skyward. "Ach, don't _remind_ me."

"Of Cerise in general, or the fact that you shut down her intergalactic booty call?"

"I don't know. _Both_."

"Ha!" Kitty gave him a gentle kick in the chest, at which Kurt tried to frown, though he was clearly fighting a smile.

"Seriously, though," Kitty continued. "A girl travels halfway across the galaxy to jump your bones—you've gotta take that as a compliment. What did you _do_ to that girl?"

"You should check the inter-galactic channels. For all we know, Cerise's armor recorded it."

"On my God! You could be space-sex famous!"

Kurt grinned. "If that isn't all I lack to make my life complete..."

They shared a heartfelt laugh that somehow descended quickly into an awkward silence. Kitty took another large sip of wine.

"Do you remember… your birthday?" she asked.

Kurt's body seemed to grow very still against hers. "A lot of crazy things happened that night…"

"But you do remember—don't you?"

"Ja, I remember."

Resisting the urge the rearrange her suddenly uncomfortable pose, Kitty said, "I was _such_ a dweeb."

Kurt eyed his wine glass on the coffee table. "No comment."

"While we're on the topic… What _was_ it you were doing that night? I know there was something… What _exactly_ were you doing with your tail?"

Kurt hesitated, screening her tone and expression for sarcasm. "Are you joking?"

She regarded him squarely. "You _did_ promise to tell me when I was older."

"Um…"

"You'd tell Logan."

"Logan is _much_ older than you."

"But I'm more mature."

Kurt's narrowed eyes continued to interrogate her.

"Oh, c'mon, Kurt. I'm not a child. I see worse in biology class every day."

"Funny. Well, Amanda likes… so I used my tail to… Well. You get the picture."

Kitty did her protestations of maturity partial credit by not allowing her jaw to drop more than an inch. "Wait. You mean you used your tail so that you could... both ways... at once...?"

Kurt wrinkled his nose. "That makes it sound weird."

"Um, _isn't_ it?"

"Not if you have a prehensile tail and a girlfriend who likes anal sex."

"I can't believe you use your powers for sex…"

"Well, that's not really 'powers' so much as my _body_ and the preferences of a particular partner, but… Anyway. What about you? You've never used your abilities for sex?"

Kitty snorted. "Yeah, right. Phasing. Real useful. 'I've got a naughty idea—wouldn't it be super sexy if we _couldn't touch each other_?'"

"But what about…" Kurt stopped himself.

"What?"

"Nothing—forget it."

"You were going to ask about Peter."

"Really, I—"

"You and he never talked about that?"

"Piotr?" Kurt scoffed. "He never talked about you." In response to Kitty's obvious hurt, he amended, "I mean, not like _that_. He'd blush like a schoolboy anytime we mentioned you. But I know that he had… when he was in his metal form…"

"First of all," Kitty intervened. "The enormous metal wang thing is _way_ more intriguing to men than it is to women. Plus, Peter couldn't really feel anything when he was metal."

"So he couldn't get—"

"Uh huh."

"Well, that's ten bucks I owe Logan."

Now it was Kitty's turn to force a frown. "You had _better_ be joking."

"I _am_."

" _Good_."

Kitty slid her own glass onto the coffee table and finally allowed herself to get more comfortable, both legs dropping off the back of the couch to drape across Kurt's midsection. He shifted to accommodate her, curling his left arm around her calves. Idly, perhaps unconsciously, his fingers stroked her gently behind her knees. Kitty released a silent, contented sigh.

"What does it feel like to be…" she stopped herself, realizing she'd spoken without thinking. "Oh, never mind."

"What?"

"Well, I don't even know if you can answer this because, I mean, you've always been you, so… It's just that I've just always wondered what it feels like to… I mean, with _fur_ , what does it feel like to… to be…"

Kurt arched a dark eyebrow. "To be… _touched_?"

"I'm sorry, you don't have to…"

"No," he assured her. "It's okay. You're right. I don't really know what it's like _not_ to have fur, but I think that I… That is, I've been _told_ that I'm more…"

"Sensitive?"

"For lack of a better word. Things… feel better for me, I think. Touching and…"

"Petting?" Kitty tickled her bare toes against the collar of Kurt's henley.

Kurt caught her foot in his hand. "And you wonder why I don't talk to you about these things."

"Oh c'mon. With the grain, or against?"

"Kitty…"

"What?" she protested, feigning innocence. "I'm just _asking_."

"Well that's…" he released her foot to run a hand through his hair. "You see, that's a complicated question. It depends on the context. With the grain is sort of… soothing… and against is kind of… I don't know, sort of uncomfortable-comfortable. It depends on the context."

"So you keep saying."

"Okay, okay," Kurt wriggled himself out of her clutches and back into an upright sitting position. "That's enough twenty questions for one bottle. But speaking of the wonderful features of fur, I'm not at my best from being out in that rain earlier. Do you mind if I have a shower before we call it a night?"

"Knock yourself out."

"But first," Kurt said, raising the last swallow of wine in his glass. "A toast. To absent friends."

"Yes," Kitty agreed, meeting his glass. "And present ones."

_**Then—** _

Kurt pushed himself to his feet, clenching and unclenching his two-fingered fists as his blue feet rolled over the carpet, from one side of her room, to the other. As she'd been doing throughout the night, Kitty found herself watching him. Kurt was a mess of contradictions. Some of his features, like his fangs, forked tail, and glowing golden eyes, certainly gave him a demonic flair. Yet those features were offset by gentler ones, like his velvet soft fur, and his large, blunt hands and feet. If there was a method behind the madness of Kurt's design, the best evidence was his gracefulness. He body flowed like water, so lean, strong, and well-oiled, just like his tail, sashaying behind the silent steps of his extra-jointed feet. Kurt was born to perform effortless double back flips at the drop of a hat.

Yet that was precisely what made him so unsettlingly alien. While Kitty had no trouble marveling at Kurt's graceful athleticism, it felt more like the way she would appreciate a tiger or a famous racehorse, something beautiful, but decidedly un-human. Sometimes, she even wished she could ignore Kurt's humanity to better love his body's strange beauty. But then he would turn to her, as he did then, with his golden eyes so full of pain there could be no doubt of it, and his body became a wall again, a barrier between her head and her heart.

"It's not that bad, you know? All of this."

Kitty regarded him quizzically. "I don't—"

"This." Kurt stopped his pacing and made an expansive gesture with his hands to indicate his body. "This is who I _am_ , Katzchen. And I know it might be difficult for you to understand, but I really _like_ being me."

Kitty considered him thoughtfully. She wanted to believe him. "Despite everything? Despite angry mobs trying to kill you?"

Kurt sighed wearily. "It's hard, sure. Being yourself is hard. But what can you do? Even if I'm not being hunted for being a mutant, someone else, somewhere else, is being hunted for having the wrong skin, loving the wrong person, worshiping the wrong God… We both know this, you and I. Perhaps more than most, ja?"

"Yes," Kitty agreed seriously. It was not something she and Kurt had ever talked about, his German and her Jewish heritage. Compared to the enormity of being a mutant, all other prejudices, historical or otherwise, sometimes seemed inconsequential. But of course they weren't; they were just additional symptoms of the problem, further proof of humans' apparently insatiable thirst for reasons to hate and destroy each other.

"Besides," Kurt added, flashing a mischievous smile. "This body has its advantages. Some of which you may not understand until you're older."

Kitty's bottom lip began to tremble. She made a vain, valiant effort to corral it before choking on a loud sob. The tears started a moment later, streaming uncontrollably down her face.

"Katzchen…!"

Instinctively, Kurt raced to her side. He dropped onto the mattress next to her, reached for her free hand, and engulfed it in his, desperate to transfer his strength to her. It wasn't until she turned her tear-streaked face toward their joined hands that he seemed to realize what he'd done. He tried to pull away, but Kitty squeezed his hand tighter, keeping him close. Kurt tensed, but obeyed.

Kitty continued to stare at their hands, studying her four tiny pink fingers woven through his two larger blue ones, as she slowly but surely blinked back her tears. Then her bleary eyes traveled up, to the point where Kurt's indigo fur met the white sleeve of his t-shirt, stretched taut around his compact muscles. From a distance, Kurt's fur didn't really look like fur at all. Instead, it looked like a trick of the light, like there was a light flickering, somewhere, that caused his skin to be shinier than it should have been. Other times, it was like there was light missing, swallowing him in shadow. Up close, though, you could start to pick up the texture of it, the way the tiny grains bent against his shirt and broke over the curves of his muscles, changing color a dozen times an inch, between countless unnamed shades of ultramarine, indigo and almost-black. She could even see it a bit through his shirt, which reminded her—that same sleek fur was everywhere, covering every inch of Kurt's body. How could he be so clearly a man, and yet…

Choking on another surge of tears, Kitty threw her arms around Kurt's torso, pressing her cheek into his chest, over his heart. Kurt accommodated her stiffly, struggling to keep up with her flurry of teenage emotions.

"I was only joking, Katzchen. I didn't mean—"

Kitty snuffled against his chest, wiping her nose half on her hand, and half on his shirt. "I know, fuzzy. I know…"

_**Now—** _

Kitty was arranging blankets for a bed on the couch when Kurt returned to the living room, naked save the white towel wrapped around his narrow hips.

When he encountered her, he stopped. "Oh—I'm sorry."

"No problem," Kitty replied, forcing her gaze back to the task at hand. "I'm just about done with this, anyway."

"You don't have to do that."

"Hey, you're my guest. It's really the least I can do."

She gave her spare pillow a final, violent shake, and then turned, to see... Kurt. He had his back to her, leaning over the coffee table to riffle through his duffel bag.

Her heart skipped another beat before settling into a thundering lurch. Kurt's blue-black hair was wet and glistening in the low light that also glimmered in his fur, slippery soft and lustrous in the creases of his liquid, lean muscles. A drop of water from his hair was trickling down his back, wending it's way toward his spine and the base of his tail, hidden beneath the white towel.

Kitty was tired. Tired of being sad, tired of being lonely. And she was definitely tired of thinking. So for once, she didn't think. When Kurt straightened, and turned toward her, she stepped into his body, seized the back of his neck, and covered his blue-black lips with hers.

With unprecedented clumsiness, Kurt stumbled backward, nearly falling over the table before wrapping his hands, one of which was clutching a clean t-shirt, around her waist. Whether he grabbed her out of passion, instinct, or simply to keep his balance was unclear, given the rather tentative response of his tongue to hers. Undeterred, Kitty slid her hands down his back, with the grain of his fur, and then up, fingernails following his spine. Kurt exhaled a sound into her mouth as his hands flexed on her hips. For a moment, his own hips tilted into hers, his tail curving toward her body. But it was only a moment. He'd barely brushed his firm, warm abdomen against hers when he wrenched himself away, and finally tripped over the table, clattering one of two wine glasses onto the carpet.

"Oh my…"

"…what did…"

"… I'm… oh God…"

"…I…"

"…you were looking so… and I… oh _God_ …"

"You're just…" Kurt was still recovering himself, tightening the towel that had slipped dangerously low on his hips. "You're lonely, and you're hurting. You just… You miss Piotr."

"That's not… It's not the first time I've..."

"What are you—"

"You've never thought about it? In all the years we've known each other, you've never… wondered?"

"I'm…" Kurt trailed off, then shook his head to clear it. "I don't know. You're my _sister_. I mean… the sister I _don't_ have sex with."

"Why?" Kitty bristled. Because I'm not a five foot ten blonde with double d's?"

" _What?_ That is _not_ what I—"

"So what _did_ you mean?"

"I'm—I don't know. I meant… what I said. It's… I'm sorry."

"Why can't be have both?"

Kurt shook his head again, slowly this time, staring down at the shirt he was still holding, crumpling and uncrumpling it between his fingers. "Maybe two other people could do that. But not you and me."

" _Why_ _not_ you and me? You're not still…"

Kurt dropped the t-shirt into his bag, and reached up to massage the back of his neck. The gesture felt heart-sickeningly familiar.

Softly, she said, "It was a long time ago, Kurt."

Kurt's tail swished back and forth behind his ankles. "That's not—"

"Isn't it?"

"I told you then I forgave you," he said earnestly, affixing her with his golden gaze. "And I meant it."

"So then what's—"

"Just what I said. This isn't right. Not for us."

Kitty swallowed—her emotions, and her pride, and a thousand things she wanted to say. She swallowed them largely because of what Kurt didn't know—that after he'd left her that night six years ago, she'd had another visitor.

At last, she said, "You know, when I came home tonight, I didn't think you'd be here."

"Oh Katzchen…"

He reached for her, and she stepped gratefully into his strong velvet arms, just like she'd done so many times before, as a friend, and as a sister.

"I will _always_ be here," he assured her, speaking softly into her hair. "Just… give me some time to think about it, okay?"

"How much time?"

"Shall we synchronize watches?"

"Kurt…"

"Okay, I know. Just… some time."

 _ **Then**_ —

Eventually, Kurt managed to relax into her hug, resting his chin on the top of her head, large thumb massaging her shoulder. Kitty closed her eyes, listening to the slow, strong rhythm of his heart under her ear.

After a while, she said, "Just… give me some time—okay?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"But things move pretty fast around here—you know?"

"Tell me about it. A few hours ago, I thought I was dead. And now… here we are."

"And where are we, fuzzy elf?"

 _ **Now**_ —

Kitty pulled back, enough to meet his golden eyes. "48 hours ago, I was calling you for the first time in months because I thought I'd seen a clone of my dead boyfriend moonlighting as a cop. And now, we're here."

"And where are we, Katzchen?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "But for now, it's okay."

Still holding her hips, Kurt favored her with a smile— _that_ smile, the genuine version of the one he'd flashed at Carol, the one she'd always loved, especially when he smiled it for her. "On the bright side," he said, his tone matching his words, "I plan to grow even handsomer as I age."

Kitty did her best to return his smile. "I believe you."

Kurt's best smile faltered. He was struggling, she knew, to decide whether she was joking, unwilling, or unable, to truly convince himself it was possible that she wasn't. His struggle made Kitty recall a phrase she'd heard before: _I can tear my heart out trying to patch that wound, but it will never be enough…_

Kitty backed the rest of the way out of Kurt's familiar arms, and cleared her throat. "I'll… um… I'll be up in the morning to see you off, okay?"

"I'd like that."

"G'night, fuzzy."

"Goodnight, mein prinzessin."

There was nothing else to say. Kitty walked past him to the bedroom, and closed the door behind her.

 _ **Then**_ —

The door had been safely closed behind Kurt for at least an hour before another set of knuckles rapped on her door. This knock was frank and demanding, resounding with impatient purpose. Already used to anticipating random disasters, Kitty threw off her blankets and sprung to her feet to answer it.

It was Amanda. She was still wearing the burgundy robe, her blue eyes rimmed with red, her long blonde hair disheveled.

She didn't wait for a hello before demanding, "Is Kurt here?"

"No," Kitty replied. "He left an hour ago."

Amanda stalked past her into the room, leaving Kitty no choice but to step aside, and let her pass.

"He didn't come back," Amanda told her. "He said he was coming to talk to you about what happened, and then he didn't… He left an _hour_ ago?"

"Sometimes he and Wolverine—"

Amanda shook her head. "I wouldn't know where to look—this place is a maze. But it's just as well. I wanted to talk to you, anyway."

"Oh! Well, Kurt already apologized, and we—"

"He _what_?" Amanda had been pacing the room, but lurched to a stop on the heels of her incredulous interruption.

"Um…" Kitty chewed her lip inside her mouth, wondering if it was magic or a fear of uncovering more secrets that kept her from phasing through the floor.

"As I see it," Amanda continued, " _you_ walked in on _us_. If anyone should be _apologizing_ —"

"I _did_ ," Kitty shot back, Amanda's grilling finally igniting her own anger. "I _did_ apologize."

Amanda crossed her arms over her ample breasts. "Then why isn't Kurt in bed with me right now?"

" _What_? That isn't _my_ fault! I told you, he left here—"

"An hour ago, I heard you the first time." Amanda released an exasperated breath, and spun away again, marching to the edge of the darkened window. Staring blindly into the night, she said, "You really don't understand at all, do you?"

Kitty was quite sure the question was rhetorical, so she stayed quiet, and let Amanda continue.

"Don't you think Kurt was ever a teenager? Don't you think we _all_ were? You weren't there when Kurt's adult teeth grew in as fangs, or when he first learned to teleport. You don't know how _scared_ he was—how scared _I_ was. You don't know how I missed his face in the crowd, where he could never be. Back then, he was never allowed to appear in front of strangers until it was time to perform for them, and even then, he had to pretend to be someone else, some _thing_ else, a man impersonating a demon…"

Amanda paused, collecting herself. When she started again, her voice was softer—and sadder. "Do you know why Kurt came here?"

"No," Kitty admitted. "I've heard stories, but I've never..."

"That man, that awful, _disgusting_ man…" Amanda's hands slipped to her stomach, as though steadying it against a flood of nausea. "The first time Kurt went to America, they put him in a _cage_. Like an _animal_. This is _Kurt,_ in a _cage_ , my lovely, beautiful Kurt... And I can't erase that. I can kiss him, and love him, and give him my soul. I can tear my heart out trying to patch that wound, but it will never be enough. He will _never_ be the same. And when he got back, those people… They came to the circus. They burned down our tents, and the police didn't care, the police were _with_ them… They were all looking for Kurt. And eventually, they found him. If Professor Xavier hadn't... they would have... would have..."

Her voice cracked badly, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stop the sound, shoulders trembling inside her robe. Kitty, meanwhile, was both silent and numb, woefully unequipped to process the implications of Amanda's outburst. She wasn't familiar enough with Kurt's history to make sense of everything Amanda had said, though the gist of it was clear. Mostly, Kitty found herself struggling to imagine the Kurt she knew ever being so helpless. How could anyone... _why_ would anyone... a _cage_?

Finally, Amanda dropped her hand. "You don't know how happy I am that he found this place. Even at the circus, it was only his talent and my mother's influence that kept him out of the freak show. But here… He's finally found a place where he can be _himself_. Here, risking his life every other day, it's the first time he's ever been _safe_. Does that make sense?"

"I… I think so."

Amanda shook her head wearily, massaging her red-rimmed eyes. "Have you ever been in love?"

Kitty's breath hitched into an awkward half-cough. "I… Yes… No… I mean, I don't know. I don't think so..."

For the first time since the party, Amanda smiled. "Well, when you are, you'll understand. Then I hope you can forgive me. He's my lover and my baby brother—it can make me a bit crazy."

"That's… understandable."

Amanda's smile turned playful beneath her bleary eyes. Lack of family resemblance aside, the smile reminded Kitty very much of Kurt's. "So you _do_ think I'm crazy, hm?"

"No! I—"

Kurt's lover interrupted her with a chuckle. "That's okay. You're probably right. That's why I need Kurt—to keep me grounded." She waited for Kitty's laugh, and when she didn't get it, she shrugged. " _That_ was a joke. Clearly, I've been spending too much time around Kurt—his terrible sense of humor is rubbing off on me."

Kitty was about the attempt a response, but was reprieved by a buzz from the comm system next to her bed. She hurried dutifully to the wall to answer it. "This is Kitty."

"Hey, kid, it's me."

"Logan!" Kitty exclaimed, genuinely glad to hear his familiar, growling voice. "We were just talking about you."

"'We?'" he echoed. "Is Amanda there?"

"Um..." Kitty looked across at the older woman, who offered a nod of ascent. "Yes, she's here."

"Great. 'Cause I'm lookin' to unload a drunken elf. Tell her I'm sending… hopefully not carrying… Kurt back to his room."

"I'll tell her."

"Thanks. 'Night."

Amanda was already at the door, retying her robe, and smoothing her hair. "Well—I guess we've each burst in on each other this evening. Maybe we can call it even?"

"Sure."

Amanda paused at the threshold, hand on the doorknob. "And, Kitty? Thanks for listening. It can be hard for me too—you know?"

"It's hard for all of us," Kitty agreed.

"I know."

And then she was gone, not in a puff of smoke, but almost as fast.

Kitty spent much of the rest of the night staring into the ceiling, hating herself, the x-gene, and the world that seemed to make everything so difficult. When she finally feel asleep, she dreamed about the future, when they'd all be safe, and everything would be easy.

 _ **Now**_ —

When she woke up, Kurt was gone. But he left behind his watch along with a note, both of them placed atop a pile of neatly folded blankets:

_Dearest Katzchen,_

_My apologies—I couldn't sleep, and didn't want to wake you. But I will be back for my favorite watch. Feel free to synchronize it with yours, to save time when next we meet._

_All my love,_

_Kurt_

Kitty started to crumple the note, but didn't. Instead, she folded it carefully, and slid it into the pocket of her bathrobe. She wasn't sure if everything had changed, or nothing had. She wouldn't know until she saw him again. But she _would_ see him again. A world constantly on the brink of catastrophe wouldn't have it any other way.

It was just a matter of time.

_**~ END...? ~** _

* * *

_**A/N:** Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed this story, be sure to check out the sequels, _"A Different Sameness" and "Whole Into Parts!"


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